MARIETTA - Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens wants to locate a military post exchange/commissary at the corner of Atlanta Road and South Cobb Drive just south of Marietta.

While the details are preliminary, Olens envisions a 30-acre site, with a 54,000-square-foot commissary building, alongside a future aviation museum building of yet-to-be determined size. The commissary could open as soon as November 2011. There is also discussion of building a memorial on the site to honor America's soldiers, a proposal made by Commissioner Tim Lee (see Around Town on Page 4A for more on the memorial).

Shared parking, Olens said, would be a bonus for building all three projects on the same site, but surrounding property would need to be secured to make it all fit.

Presently, the shuttered Aviation Museum and Discovery Center subleases from the county 15 acres on the site, which the county in turn leases from the U.S. Air Force. The AMDC also leases about five acres from the Georgia National Guard that includes an old Corps building used for storage. Both leases are in the process of being transferred from the AMDC to the Marietta Museum of History, said MMH Chairman Brent Brown.

The AMDC originally intended to build a museum devoted to aviation on the site but failed with its fundraising.

Olens called a meeting at his county offices on Friday with members of both museum boards, staff from the offices U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta), and the military to discuss building a commissary on the site.

"Many great folks there and many good ideas discussed with much work to be done," Lee said of the meeting.

AMDC Chairman Chuck Clay said he supports the proposal. But Brown and AMDC Vice Chairman Micky Blackwell said the site is wrong for a commissary building.

Brown contends building a commissary would mean involvement by the federal government, which he says would delay efforts to build a museum and subsequently impact fund-raising.

A commissary is a government-subsidized grocery store open to active-duty military personnel, National Guardsmen, military retirees and their families. Olens said while commissaries don't collect sales taxes, they do help soldiers and veterans, and for this reason alone are beneficial.

Last fall the military announced that a commissary will be added in Cobb to replace those at Fort Gillem and Fort McPherson in Atlanta and at the Naval Supply School in Athens.

The commissary would serve all of the metro area and north Georgia and is expected to serve about 100,000 customers per month along with creating 100 jobs.

Brown said he fully supports a commissary being built in Cobb, but doesn't want it on the same site as his future museum. That's because he wants to start efforts to build a museum this year and adding a commissary, which means federal involvement, will extend the timeline by years. An indefinite delay means losing the momentum and excitement from the community generated from the transfer of the AMDC's assets to the MMH, he said.

However, it's still unclear what exactly the MMH plans to build on the site. Brown has spoken about renovating the Corps building to be used as the first home of the aviation museum. But he needs the county to release a $500,000 grant pledged for a museum building. Olens said the $500,000 grant comes with a few strings, namely that the museum must raise $2 million for capital construction for a museum building on its own, before that grant is given.

Olens said he will continue to negotiate with Brown and the other players to see if consensus can be reached.